Artist's Statement for "Utopia"

 

Commencing in the fall of 2017, Utopia is an extended body of work intended to portray fleeting visions of natural paradise. Ribbons of subtle color seem to fly across the solid planes of the paintings, conjuring half-formed images of natural structures, ranging from vast mountain ranges to small squares of forest floor. While the paintings and prints differ in their scope, they all approach the subject of pristine, unspoiled environments with delicately rendered forms and balanced compositions. Many of the forms are largely inspired by traditional Chinese landscape paintings, such as those made by Guo Xi (郭熙), as they both manipulate the quality of brush strokes relative to the edges of the picture plane to conjure a sense of vast space on a two-dimensional surface. These works offer the viewer a temporary respite from the familiar geometries of human life, instead providing a tantalizing glimpse of a vibrant -albeit naïve- interpretation of nature at its most splendid and benevolent.